Stages of the spiritual journey

Hello friend,

I recently came across a tweet that talked about four stages of a spiritual journey put forward by Ken Wilber:

i) Wake up — Seeing that there is a higher consciousness

ii) Grow up — Maturing one’s views to be able to hold multiplicity of truths

iii) Clean up — Healing and integrating any shadows (parts in ourselves, and therefore others, that are separated and unloved)

iv) Show up — Expressing one’s full emanation in the world

I have not read about them in detail yet, but I doubt this journey is not linear.

I feel the journey is progressive and cyclic, or perhaps, like the peeling of an onion.

You find layers to let go of after every cycle and experience every stage at progressive levels in increasing or decreasing intensity levels.

There is a spectrum at each level- a spectrum of consciousness, truth, shadow, and expression of the whole self. After each cycle, you shed an outer layer to get to the core of your being.

For ex, if I reflect on my life phases, I see a couple of cycles clearly:

(If you are short on time, you can skip these reflections about two cycles and go to the last section where I tried to summarize my learnings from these reflections)

The first cycle

First, was the period when I first came across ideas of spirituality, and meditation, and went on my first Vipassana retreat.

This was the beginning of waking up.

During this cycle, I grew up to slowly realize that I don’t need to follow a path laid down by society. There can be multiple paths and I can choose.

I also began to get a glimpse of shadow parts of myself in this phase. I sense this is also a function of every stage where with waking up and growing up, you inadvertently come face to face with your shadow self.

But, there is no conscious effort needed and all you need to do is to stay in the present and follow your intuition.

In the first cycle, my Showing up phase was in 2017-2018 when I got into my dream course for liberal arts.

This is because I feel I showed up as the most self-assured, calm, collected version of myself for most of that year.

However, that year also kickstarted the second cycle where there was a phase of Waking up.

The second cycle

During my time in that course, I could sense my consciousness expanding as a result of some interactions with my peers, books, and some extraordinary teachers.

It automatically led to a sense of growing up as I witnessed and engaged with diverse perspectives and people from different backgrounds.

As I integrated lessons from that course and shifted to a new city to work, I came across the third stage.

This is where I began to have face-offs with my shadow self frequently leading to a breakdown and my first visit to a therapist. It was probably the most challenging phase of the period.

The tweet author said that the Cleanup phase is probably the most underrated and I agree. It can be extremely challenging and crippling.

You get face-to-face with your fears, insecurities, and emotional pain.

And your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to let them come up and witness them without judgment. It is not a mission impossible but an extremely difficult thing to do.

I spent considerable time in the third and fourth stages of this cycle as I showed up in my first relationship after that period of clean-up.

Post that, I could have faced multiple mini-cycles of these spiritual stages, thanks to the pandemic and the eventual breakup.

Since then, I feel I have experienced 2-3 more cycles with different experiences and life events.

There are a few things I have learned from this reflection (which I just did while writing this edition).

Lessons from stages of the spiritual journey

a) The spiritual journey can begin from a deep place of dissatisfaction and hopelessness with the present.

It might sound counterintuitive as the first requisite of any spiritual philosophy is mindfulness and accepting the present as it is.

But, you only begin to question the present when you know something is missing.

For me, that place of dissatisfaction came from my failure to get into IITs (Indian Institute of Technology) and thereby failing to fulfill the expectations of parents and teachers.

That is what led me to question everything I knew, especially the definition of success, and eventually led me on the path of self-inquiry through meditation.

b) Each stage is designed to help you inculcate some specific spiritual values. These values compound and help you in subsequent stages.

For example, I see:

Waking up being associated with Presence and Mindfulness,
Growing up being associated with Curiosity, Expanded Awareness, and Non-judgement.
Cleaning up being associated with Acceptance, Kindness, and Self-compassion,
Showing up being associated with Creativity, Peace, Joy, and Love

I feel that with every cycle, you strengthen these values.

And chances are that if you feel stuck in a specific stage, you need to work on consciously cultivating the spiritual values associated with that stage.

For example, if you feel stuck amidst old patterns frequently coming up (a sign of Clean up stage), try asking yourself: Which part of myself I am not accepting? How can I be more kind to myself?

c) Life happens for you to help you go through these cycles.

I have come to realize that healing (associated with the Cleaning stage) is not a one-time event.

It happens in cycles. Just like each stage of the spiritual cycle.

It is pointless to wait for healing completely before showing up. It might never happen, at least in this lifetime.

Life is happening for you, not to just help you heal, but to help you go through and cyclically experience all these stages.

So, some days you can feel your true self and experience joy, peace, or love. And some days, you feel you are struggling again with your older patterns and behaviors.

That does not mean you have not grown up or healed.

It only means you are in another cycle and life is happening for you so you can shed another layer and get to the core of your being.

The core which is pure, non-judgemental love, awareness, and presence!

That is all from me this week, folks!

I feel there is still a lot to unpack or share on these stages but I feel it is enough for today. 🙂

I’d love to know your thoughts now.

What do you think about these stages of the spiritual journey?
Have you experienced these stages in your life?
Can you identify the stage where you are at present?
Do you resonate with the lessons?

Feel free to share your ramblings about your spiritual journey in your replies!

Until next time,
Love,
Ved